Tuesday, 30 November 2010

Last time I visited Lassco/Brunswick House (the big house in the middle of the Vauxhall gyratory), I reported that they'd opened a new cafe. Lassco is an antique salvage company where you can browse through any number of old artefacts (everything from old prints to refurbished bath tubs). One of the great joys of the cafe is the option to buy all of the furniture on display! If you weren't tempted by my review, you might be tempted by the knowledge that those who run the cafe belong to the Di Lieto family, who run a very good delicatessen in the nearby Bonnington Square.

In the meantime, Lasso applied for a musical and alcohol licence. I've no idea whether it was approved, but the venue has started hosting local events and is gaining in popularity... The first ever art exhibition to feature in the space is "Reclaimed", a sprawling show of over 30 wall-panels and watercolours by David Taborn, which will fill every room of Brunswick House. This is a very exciting development because it builds on the foundation of a strong arts community in SE11 (there are 5 art galleries in our tiny postcode).

At Reclaimed, the wall-pieces will contain 3D elements as the frames of each exhibit create a membrane allowing two worlds to suck or seep into each other. View intriguing works such as a musical typewriter set in a mirror, snooker balls pouring through a 2-dimensional harp, melting Wagner records and a swatch of Freud's sofa. The ingredients of David's weird and intriguging works are objects and materials 'that have had a former life'.

David Taborn is a NESTA Fellow and has exhibited in the UK, New York, Brazil, Belgium and Germany. His work is in collections including the Courtauld Institute, Djanogly Art Gallery, Government Art Collection and NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts).

The London Assembly Transport Committee has released its report, Pedal Power and an accompanying set of survey highlights, on the topic of TFL's Cycle hire (aka Boris/Ken bikes) and the TFL superhighways.

Kennington gets a mention under the "initial issues" of the Cycle hire section on p18:Hopefully we should see improved service in Kennington if Lambeth Council are successfully granted planning permission for the new docks around Albert Embankment, Cleaver Square and Kennington and Oval tube stations etc. Thanks to Prince's Ward Councillors, who've provided full feedback from Dawn Rahman and a comprehensive review of the suggested docks in the area, and comments upon whose suggestions were taken forward. Unfortunately, a number of suggested docks were outside of the current zone (although it's unclear where the boundaries lie). Considering the lack of tubes further south in London, I hope we'll see the scheme extended in the future. Oval/Vauxhall seems an arbitrary cut off and demonstrates a lack of interest by the Mayor in South London infrastructure.

The Pedal Power report, also reviewed the Cycle Superhighways (CS7 runs through Kennington/Oval), and rather alarmingly states:

"Although the cycle superhighways are designed to provide safer cycling routes, it is not clear the pilot routes are achieving this." p27

and

"Whilst in some places there are full advance stop lines of 5 metres depth and mandatory cycle lanes of 2 metres width, elsewhere there are just narrow ‘ghost’ lanes (sections of blue paint without any legal status). However, it is most concerned that there are virtually no measures to reduce motor traffic volumes or speeds." p27

And indeed, on p28, Sustran conclude of the two initial pilot superhighways (CS7 and CS3), "the greatest barrier to Londoners cycling, or cycling more, is fear of traffic yet the cycle superhighways generally follow busy arterial roads and provide no or minimal segregation from traffic. It therefore concludes that in their current form the cycle superhighways have limited scope to facilitate an uptake in cycling, particularly by new cyclists."

"There has been a lack of bikes and available docking points in certain areas, particularly at peak periods. The Committee’s survey revealed [ac lack of bikes and was a particular problem in Covent Garden, Holborn, Kennington, Westminster and Waterloo. One respondent commented: "There is a shocking lack of available docking points in Vauxhall and Kennington. Twice I had to cycle further than I had to travel from where I picked the bike up. Once I was told to take the bike home. Not fun to carry up 4 flights of stairs. I was charged £50…and told to wait 5 days for a refund.""

Tuesday, 23 November 2010

The ex-head teacher of Henry Fawcett Primary School, James Walker, has launched a constructive unfair dismissal case against Lambeth Council and the school's executive board.

Mr Walker was in charge of the Henry Fawcett school from September '99 until February '08, when he was diagnosed with cancer and underwent two operations. Seven months later, (September '08), he returned to work, only to be suspended in November '08 due to an allegation made by a staff member (which was unrelated to the school's educational standards or financial management). Following the suspension, he submitted a disability discrimination claim against Lambeth Council.

During his suspension, in July '09, Lambeth Council dismissed 12 governors from Henry Fawcett. Kate Hoey said to the Evening Standard at the time, "I feel that [Mr Walker] has not been treated in a way that would generally be considered to be justified and when the governors supported him, they got rid of them."

In September '09, whilst Mr Walker had been absent from the school, an Ofsted inspection was undertaken, and the school was considered to be failing. Henry Fawcett was immediately placed in special measures (but has more recently had these removed).

Mr Walker claimed to have "management concerns" in the school, prior to his sick-leave which were "dismissed", but these were later raised with him upon his return to work. He resigned recently (September '10), but has now launched a constructive unfair dismissal claim which means that a resignation has occured because an employment contract has theoretically been substantially breached

It would be useful to have a little more insider information on this matter. It is, however, worth noting, that Kate Hoey MP has backed James Walker, which potentially demonstrates the existence of an injustice at some stage.

The Daily Mail is reporting another attempt to blow up the spooks at MI6. This follows the last genuine attempt back in August 2008. Unfortunately, this is a piece of rather sensationalised reporting because, after a controlled explosion was carried out, the "package" was deemed to be harmless. Indeed, according to Londonist, the package turned out to be a bicycle!

That didn't stop the authorities closing Vauxhall Station and the Albert Embankment at about 1:30pm, and bringing out yellow tape, police dogs, fire engines, police cars and... a robot to destroy the bicycle! A considerable number of local employees were locked into their offices for their own safety.

Sunday, 21 November 2010

I received a highly informative poster from the Triangle Association last week, updating us with the current status of the Triangle Adventure Playground. Unfortunately, Lambeth Council are still seeking to evict them, but the case has been adjourned until February 2011 (great news).

This little thorn in the flesh has the potential to become quite embarrassing for the Council because, as you might have noticed, Cllr Edbrooke name checked the Triangle Adventure Playground as being a "well run" example of a co-op style project at the last Kennington Oval and Vauxhall forum meeting. This is great (I think) because it demonstrates that she has the guts to resist the Council's line on the matter. Consequently, the Playground is now /finally/ receiving support from the three Councillors of Oval Ward; Jane Edbrooke (Lab), Jack Hopkins (Lab) and Ishbel Brown (Lib Dem) and I'm hoping that they're making strong representations to Cllr Robbins against closing it down (see below). In addition, they've promised to fund the playground from the Oval Ward purse. Now that's fighting talk, and it's a demonstration of the resistance that might be needed in the up and coming months....

There's other good news in the pipeline...

The Triangle Association committee have found a fund which might match funding from the Ward Purse, and would potentially pay for a solar power electricity system. Heads up to the Triangle Association for their pioneering (and green) co-operative work! Unfortunately, the solar power system requires a minimum lease of 10 years, so Lambeth Council will have to agree to cease eviction proceedings. In addition, the Triangle have gained potential access to further funds for the next 18 months, but they'll need a longer lease. I hope the Council do the right thing...

Righty ho. Here's what you've all been waiting for... The Sainsbury's Towers exhibition was held quite prominently in the car park, and I've had a look at their plans, and am quite keen on the proposals (except for the probably inevitable high rise towers).

The plan is to demolish the current (rather ugly) Sainsburys, so that instead of floating in the middle of nowhere, it will front on to the Wandsworth Road. The new building will be glass fronted and the size of the floor plan will be increased so that it will be the largest Sainsbury's in London, at 80,000 square feet (from its current 45,000 square feet). The store will presumably become an uber-large Sainsbury's Extra Extra and will thus be able to stock a wider range of goods.

This is part of a project that would see the creation of 800 new flats that would be developed on top of the new Sainsbury's building and across the entire site, with three tall towers (18 metres, 25 metres and 35 metres) on the triangular corners of the edges.

In the meantime, whilst the demolition is undertaken, a temporary store will be erected upon the site of the petrol station. Oval News have quoted this as being 15,000 square feet, but I was told that the temporary store would be 20,000 feet. Whilst it won't be tiny, it's only going to be about a third of the size of the existing store. If you don't do your shopping online, now is the time to start! (Unless, of course, you wish to subject yourself to the dire Kennington Tesco.) It's alleged to have been improved, but, well, never mind. I'm getting off topic.

The petrol station will no longer be on site, but Sainsbury's are hoping to house it in the now disused Esso station at 54 Wandsworth Road.

At present, there is a 300 space car park on site, but the new Sainsburys should have approx. 400 spaces (all subject to agreement with Lambeth etc.) because of the increased capacity of the store. The car park will go underground (a great idea, since it's a waste of land), and there will be some bike parking too (numbers of bike stands unknown). At least, that's what I was told. The Sainsbury's website states that there are currently 450 car parking spaces on site and since the chaps definitely hoped to increase the size of the car park, I can only think a mistake has been made somewhere!

Sainsbury's hope to submit their planning application to Lambeth in March 2011, with the completed store (if application is accepted) to be opened by 2014. The residential property (all to be built on top of the new store) will follow on in the five years after 2014. The Sainsbury's redevelopment is /not/ dependent on the new Nine Elms tube eg. there's thought to still be capacity at Vauxhall, despite the size of this development.

The exhibition comprised the following 7 boards:

The "out of town" style Nine Elms Sainsbury's will be modified and other shops and businesses will share the site:

Additional retail space will create 150 new jobs. On the top left of this board, you can see the proposed Nine Elms tube station. Also, this site will open up Wandsworth Road as far back as the railway arch, and make it easier for pedestrians to access the river. This would be a considerable improvement, since currently, the Sainsbury's just appears to float in the middle of a piece of wasteland. It seems likely that the footpaths will be improved to access New Covent Garden market, although the boards don't quite go that far.

The proposal for an "explore learning" centre for the use of children, over and above school education, is imaginative, although I did hear one older person complaining that nothing is put in place for older people in the borough.

Sainsbury's say that they are "open" to having the "Nine Elms" tube station placed on their land (ambitious, considering the £280 million funding shortfall for the Northern line extension), but will only allow this if their redevelopment plans are approved by Lambeth. Considering the redevelopment to take place in the rest of the area, I can't quite see why this aggressive stance needs to be taken. The Sainsbury's plans would actually help link retail, small businesses and residential land, whilst considerably opening up the area for pedestrians:

This board might be a subtle way of hinting that, despite the creation of a new public square, the new flats will not have any green space except for huge roof gardens above the store (about 6 storeys up). I wondered whether these would be suitable for children, but I was told that the edges would be protected. I'm not too sure what the large purple blobs on the upper right diagram here represent, so would be delighted to hear from anybody that asked:

The new Sainsbury's store itself will mostly be on the first floor, so that the ground floor is opened for new businesses. There will also be a mezzanine level which will contain a cafe and non-food items. I actually think that the proposed mockup of the store here is inoffensive, but rather bland and non-descript. I'm told that these are the initial drawings, and that further detail will be available at the time of a second consultation in February 2011 (or thereabouts). I hope that the next drawings might be a little more imaginative than to depict a large glass front with giant grey boxes on the top! Still, nearly anything would be an improvement on the current design!:

750 - 800 new flats will be constructed, ranging from 1 bedroom to 3 bedroom properties. The amount of affordable housing has still to be negotiated with Lambeth Council who will set targets. I asked whether that info. would be available by the second consultation, but apparently, that bit comes much later. The number of affordable flats are only specified once the Council have analysed the plans and calculated the square footage/value of the properties. Once that has happened, a formula is followed which tells the developers the targets they have to meet and once the targets have been given, the negotiation takes place:

On this diagram, I've zoomed in to one of the boards and drawn on the heights of the proposed buildings (which are still, in the eloquent words of the PR company, "up for grabs") and also shown Vauxhall Sky Gardens in the bottom right corner:

I like this board. I think it might be my favourite planning board of all time. Here we see that Sainsbury's really don't want to build very high, but are merely following the will of Lambeth council and the GLA, who have requested "intensification". Lambeth, we're told, simply wouldn't support the development if Sainsbury's didn't propose building really really high! Ha! Consequently, the tallest Sainsbury's tower comes in at only 35 floors, whereas Vauxhall Sky Gardens (permission already granted by Lambeth) is a whopping one floor higher (36 floors). I'm not sure that suggesting it will be shorter than Vauxhall Sky Gardens is any great boast! By comparison, Strata (Elephant and Castle) is 43 storeys:

Other than the 35 storey tower, which I'm not impressed by (you all know that I dislike tall buildings), I think the Sainsbury's plan is exciting. I like the idea of developing the site so that there's space for additional retail units. It would be great if these could be low-rent and accessible to small independent businesses, but that may be too much to hope for. Also, I favour using the site to open up the railway arches from Wandsworth Road to the river. I'm hoping that the Sainsbury's might offer a gateway through to the New Covent Garden market as well.

Thursday, 18 November 2010

This post is a commentary and write-up from the KOV meeting that took place on 1st November at Vauxhall Gardens Community at which the Council Officer, Mike Wiltshire, was present to explain the purpose and end of the proposed co-operative Council for Lambeth. The first post (which is basically the Council's elaboration of what the Commission have been reviewing) can be found here. This post is a compendium of questions that were put forward by bemused Kennington, Oval, Vauxhall forum audience members (otherwise known as the Kennington Massive) to Lambeth Council about how the co-operative council might eventually appear.

Questions are often unclear and mumbly, and like in all public meetings, consist of the half-baked views of some quite strange people. I've ruthlessly cut, summarised and de-waffled so that broad summaries are in single quotes, and direct quotes are in doubles...

Qn: 'I'm concerned... There was a lot of jargon.... You're consulting on things you should really be doing any way... You're looking at spending money on consultation on answers that should be relatively obvious...'

Mike Wiltshire: 'I wouldn't disagree that we should be doing this as a matter of course. When we speak to people from different parts of the Borough, the ways they want to be consulted are different. The point of this piece of work is to find the ways that people want to work. Some prefer using area forums. Others want something more innovative eg. a local community group to come and manage a process.'

Questions: 'It would be useful to have more information about how this will run in practice and how we could contribute to the ideas about how it could be run... Could we hear about how local people get involved?' and 'We can organise collectively in neighbourhoods, but what does the council think we can personally and collectively contribute... What sort of interaction do you want between the public and yourselves?'

At that stage, you can see that the questions above (and more) concerned what a co-operative Council might look like, with all of these services effectively sub contracted-out, and poor Mr Wiltshire, who had suffered at the hands of the Kennington-massive was looking a bit drained, so Cllr Jane Edbrooke jumped to the rescue...

"These Co-op ideas were in our Labour manifesto. This officer is taking a lot of questions, and I hope to come in with some answers... We're trying to say that we don't assume that services are run in the best way that they can be run. We know that there's some great expertise out there. We're saying that if you can run a service better, we'd like to catch that... It's about making people realise that services might not be run by the Council any more or that they can run them themselves...."

And then, controversially, Cllr Edbrooke went on to note that we have an excellent co-operative venture in our midst, at the heart of the Oval Ward...

"I know that people have been speaking to those that run the [Triangle] Adventure playground. It's a controversial subject at the moment, but the playground is run very well. How can we run that elsewhere?"

Controversial subject?! Well, yes. For those that don't regularly read this blog, you ought to know that Lambeth Council are currently taking legal action against the Triangle Association to evict them from the site, in order to make room for a school expansion. So, that might not have been the best example to choose re. co-operative working!

But before anything further could be said, Mike Wiltshire grabbed the reigns again:

MW: 'At the moment, we provide youth services through youth clubs in the Borough. The new process would be to review available funding and decommission the service if it's ineffective. We'd then begin a new commission process and say to residents; "This is what's currently provided. This is how it's working and these are the problems with it. What expertise and what knowledge do you have to improve youth services, and how would you like youth services to operate in this area?"'

And then a question about whether any of our services are protected...?

Qn: At what point would the Council welcome applications? Are there any no-go areas, or is any Council service open to that?

MW: Lambeth Council are currently drawing up a list of pilots to commence in February 2010. The mechanisms of applying haven't been worked out in detail, but each year the council should be looking at specific service areas as part of the Council's budgeting cycle. The last word from Steve Reed was that there are no no-go areas, including social care. If you have an idea as to how a service can be delivered better, the Council want to hear about it...

And then somebody raised the question about whether the Emperor was wearing any clothes...

Qn: What if the community don't step up, and they say "we'd like to see the Council continue to provide the service they have been providing. We don't think, on any given matter, that we can do any better".

MW: 'Then that's fine. That's part of the conversation."

But I wonder... is it fine? If the community don't step up, and the Council don't have any money, then we're not going to have any local services. Could we end up, I wonder, in a position where 3rd sector organisations (or, more likely, the private sector) run everything with just a thin layer of accountability connecting them with the Council? I'm astonished that this move is coming from a Labour Concil since I cannot see how it's any different from Conservative/Lib Dem central government policy. Today's Financial Times notes Unison's position on public sector workers being given the "right to provide" by selling back services. "Unison, the health union, attacked the ideas as a route to 'backdoor privatisation', claiming big business was likely to take over mutuals that failed or move in as contracts were renewed". Well, precisely. Here's what I think will happen. Lambeth Council will make all (or most) youth service (or whatever) employees redundant. The employees will be invited to form not-for-profit mutuals and put together ad-hoc youth provision. The on-the-ball types will form small organisations, sell their services back to the Council, but won't have to pay their workers anything like minimum wage, and will have to reduce their services to skeletal because the Council will end up under funding them. If the mutuals fail to perform (or make a living), the Council will not be easily held responsible, but will re-tender and the service will privatise. Naturally, larger providers will be preferred because they're better able to keep costs low. I hope I'm proved wrong.

Mike Wilkinson clarified that the move towards co-operative working is more complex for statutory services eg. education. Non-statutory services such as arts, culture and sports services offer more co-operative flexibility. One of the "big ideas" that the Commission undertook to review was "time banking". Apparently, in Cardiff, you become involved in the local children's centre, health service or youth service and then, as a result of giving time, you accrue credits on discounts for leisure services, cinema and theatre, "so you can have a menu of rewards to choose from.".

Val Shawcross who was also present (not sure why, but we had no Hoey) stood to made a quick comment. She acknowledged her membership of the Co-operative party, and added that she felt the word "mutuality" had been absent from the conversation. She added that the presentation had been wrapped up in traditional "officer style speak" about consultations (she was right there). But then she amusingly noted, "There are lots of goods models of how people run things amongst themselves. Some of them are officer models. Greenwich Leisure, one of the most well known leisure providers in Lambeth was set up from amongst the staff of Greenwich Leisure Services department, and was set up as a co-operative..."

At that point, I couldn't believe my ears! The second suggestion for a co-operative (after the Triangle, which Lambeth are trying to close) was Greenwich Leisure, who are not exactly flavour of the month at the moment. A quick glance at their website reveals... the Astroturf in Kennington park is still not fixed. The Onionbag was not happy, having bought their leisure card, only to find many GLL leisure centres closed. It might not be GLL's fault, but leisure would not have been my first choice to illustrate how co-operativeness might work..

Val Shawcross finally added, "We've got some great models of co-operatives in Lambeth."

I think here that it might be worth highlighting a piece questioning the co-op that I glimpsed back in the Streatham Guardian in August. I quote, "...Jeff Jeffers, chairman of Lambeth co-operative development agency, said of 49 co-ops formed in the borough in 1971, only three still existed." I don't necessarily doubt Val's word, but we probably need to ask questions about longevity. Perhaps 1971 is too far back, and institutions aren't meant to last that long. Perhaps the co-op route is a reasonable option for short-term initiatives. My fear is that co-operative groups and mutualisation is just privatisation by the back door.
I don't want to throw a spanner in the works. I'm not against co-operative working or co-operative societies. The Council may well be /opting in/ to a very positive model of working. It would be great to have local people taking additional responsibility for the wellbeing of their communities, but... I don't want the Co-op Council or Big Society rhetoric to prevent people campaigning against cuts. I'm afraid that the word "co-operative" is being used to cover up a covert privatisation without even those who are passionately involved realising that they're on a hiding to nothing. Take a look at the words of.the Chief Executive of the Co-op group, Peter Marks, who admitted to the Guardian last year that he was a capitalist...

"At heart I am a capitalist as we have seen that other systems don't work. But the trust in banks has gone. The Co-op was not deemed sexy - we were old-fashioned because we took deposits before loaning money. But old-fashioned is the new cool in banking."

With one breath, it seems that "old fashioned" is cool again, both in banking and in local authority government, but in the next breath (same Guardian article)...

"If another person says to me 'I can remember my granny's divi number', I could get arrested for physical violence. That's old baggage, people are always looking back. We are a modern business now."

The question is, can Lambeth Council be "cool" and "old-fashioned" without "looking back" at "old baggage"? Cam Lambeth be a modern co-operative Council, or will it end up ushering in a greater era of privatisation under the noses of an unsuspecting public, who think that co-operative means, well, co-operative.

Several months ago, Jason Cobb, prior to his move, highlighted the risks of the co-operative council for the entire Borough. Now that he's left for the wilds of deepest Essex, I'll try and keep tabs on how it will affect our hyperlocal patch, but trust me, this won't be the most exciting of posts...

I was hoping for clarification when I learned that Lambeth Council Policy manager, council officer Mike Wiltshire addressed was to address the KOV on the co-op proposition at the beginning of November. Mr Wiltshire clearly knew his stuff, having been involved with the co-op council project since its starting point in February 2010. After he had given a run-down of work performed so far, I'm not sure that anybody was more practically informed about what the co-op council might look like. Question time proved a little more illuminating, but only a little... Here follows a summary of what we heard (with my commentary added later in square brackets []):

The co-op idea was introduced due to Labour's desire to change the way services are provided and develop them more collaboratively, as well as being a way to provide quality services, despite the budget cuts from central government. A white paper was published in May 2010 showing the Council's initial thoughts. After that, a committee was set up chaired by Head of Lambeth Council, Steve Reed, which consists of residents, other councillors and members of national organisations. [I'd have said it's a little light on residents, but never mind...] They've received evidence from community groups, national bodies, private/public sector companies etc. to learn how the co-operative council should be delivered and are now deliberating on that evidence. A final report, setting out the Commissioners' recommendations is due to be published in January 2011. That report will start another 3 month consultation process. At that point, they'll say, "when we talk about the Co-op council we mean these specific things" and see whether their recommendations are supported. Lambeth Council will produce its response to the commission in May 2011 and will set out any recommendations it might want to accept, reject or amend. [Any the wiser? I wasn't. But it seems to work quite well if you're involved in providing "consultation" services, something that's probably quite lucrative in these times...]

According to Mr Wiltshire, the commission has obtained evidence on 5 key areas, as follows...

1. Leadership: Two important questions have been asked: "What type of leadership should the council provide politically?" and "How can the Council be a better leader of civil society?" The majority of people who have responded to the Commission have provided a clear message. I quote...

"You're fine giving political leadership, but actually, you're not a particularly good community leader. You don't listen particularly well... If the Council are serious about this, there has to be some fundamental change to the way the organisation works... in partnership, as opposed to an organisation which attempts to consult, but doesn't do as well as it should do".

It is thought that addressing such a matter will be a major challenge for the Council.

2. Services: At present, there are problems with the way services are commissioned. Partnership is not handled well. Commissioning and procurement processes would need to be changed, so that the Council could be a "co-producer". Questions arise about whether the council should be providing services themselves or whether they should be moving to different providers? Might a social enterprise, charitable or 3rd sector organisation be more effective at delivering a service?

If an organisation shows they can deliver a service more effectively eg. youth services, under a co-op model, the council should support the organisations as opposed delivering it themselves. To give an example, the Council has commissioned a gang intervention service named Exit. Apparently, having a third sector organisation working intensively with children has been far more effective in drawing them away from gang involvement than traditional youth services, so the council are asking whether, if a 3rd sector group can be far more innovative, the council might commission such providers directly? [It all sounds great, but one wonders what will happen to traditional youth clubs that are not "in vogue" at the moment, but are valuable because they're institutional and not fleeting.]

3. Incentivisation: People need to be encouraged to become more involved in local public service provision. The Council want to know whether more citizens can be involved in such delivery and are trying to identify a "range of mechanisms" that would suit people. Mr Wiltshire admitted this would be challenging because surveys so far have shown that a lot of people are already quite active in the community and the people that aren't have made the choice not to be involved for various reasons. Consequently, it was acknowledged that trying to find a way to incentivise such people will be tricky. [It does beg the question of whether, in the end, it might not be quicker, easier and cheaper for the Council to just run the services themselves. But I suppose the answer to that is that there will be no money... I really dislike the idea of incentivising for voluntary work, as it seems to me akin to bribing. Perhaps the Council would claim it's just a way of saying "thanks".]

4. Public service management: How can the Council manage services more effectively and enable front line officers to innovate and find new ways of delivering services? At the moment, apparently, Lambeth Council have "quite a controlling risk-averse culture". The commisioners are looking at ways to try and change the culture. They're also looking at joint-management, and asking questions such as; how can the Council more effectively join up services with the police or health providers? Much work is already performed with Lambeth First partnership, but the Council seek to integrate services more widely.

5. Financing: At present, the Council try to co-ordinate budgets with other public service providers. The co-op council hope to try to centralise funding so that council, health services and police don't just align budgets, but pool them centrally. It seems that some of the ideas coming out of central government are broadly supportive of the notion. [Which makes me wonder whether it's all just about cuts, cuts and more cuts]. The Commission is also looking at alternative way of funding/financing services considering a reduction in public sector funding. The Council are looking at ways of drawing in social and private sector finance to continue to fund services. [All Council services will have to be financed somehow. Note today a report that suggests Lambeth will consider proposals for an "opt-in" paid-for garden waste removal service and charges for bulky waste collection. I fear a return to fly-tipping, so I'm hoping they've some kind of social finance scheme up their sleeves. I've not a clue what "social finance" might be!]

I've split this post in two because despite editing, once I've added the question-time and some of my comments, we're looking at an essay-length write-up! Continue reading if you want to see the questions that were asked as a result of this presentation....

Wednesday, 17 November 2010

An application has been submitted to Lambeth for the development of 28 - 34 St Agnes Place. It's reference 10/03840/FUL and if you follow that link and click "submit comments", your views will be emailed directly to Lambeth Council.

The 18 units for which permission has been requested above are for the Family Mosaic development for which consultation was held earlier this year. For more information, see the purple boards shown halfway down St Agnes Housing Development post (not the green boards, since these are for the as yet unsubmitted London and Quadrant development). For more info. on the history of the site and SLP's protest article on retaining the full Kennington Park Adventure playground, there's a post here.

Tuesday, 16 November 2010

On Saturday, I decided to skip a week at the awesome Oval Farmers' Market, which you must visit if you haven't because the food is good, prices reasonable, stall-holders friendly and it involves considerable less effort than trekking up to Borough! I dared to leave Kennington, a mistake, considering that I was then unavailable to investigate Tweets about trouble at the White Bear Theatre.

It must be stressed that trouble at the White Bear is very unusual. There are generally regulars drinking outside and people watching sport, but it's a pub in a residential area with a theatre attached. How rowdy can that be? Considerably, it seems:

Does anybody know what happened? Were there any witnesses? Was it planned?

I didn't actually go to the Nine Elms Parkside (Royal Mail sorting office) consultation as I opted to have non-planning fun at the weekend. I have, however, emailed the chaps who were running the exhibition to check whether they displayed any additional material than what is already available on the Nine Elms Parkside website. Other than a 3D model, which could be viewed at the event, all of the other material is available online. My main complaint is that the website eg. interesting map detail is just too small to view properly (however, some of it is probably available in public documents and viewable elsewhere) and the website is simply not particularly informative (and is full of general VNEB and "other landowner" info. that is already in the public domain).
I wrote a previous post with some background on the unhappy Royal Mail workers and their potential job losses, as I want this blog to form a kind of history for the area, so feel free to read that. Additionally, we now know...

The Nine Elms Parkside development will be located at the centre of the new development, split either side of the linear park, with a landscaped public square, "Tideway Green" at the centre of both the Parkside development and the linear park itself. Tideway Green will be linked to Nine Elms Square (another public square) on Nine Elms Lane. The Nine Elms Parkside buildings will range in height from 7 to 13 storeys (it sounds more pleasant than some of what Vauxhall might end up with) and car parking and cycle parking will likely be located underground underneath the park/green land. The masterplan shows that the east of the development appears to link up with the new US embassy and Ballymore land.

As you'll know, I'm always a huge fan of pictures of faceless people that don't really tell us anything useful eg. how much of the development will be affordable or given over to local housing associations? Will there be playgrounds for children built anywhere? Will the housing be for families or "young professionals" eg. is it studios or 3 bedroom flats? What are the transport options if the Northern line tube extension isn't put in? How will Royal Mail use the site for its "retained" operations in a way that allows for quiet living for the eventual residents? What will Section 106 money be spent on? All we have are a few key facts... 2000 units, 600 parking spaces, 2000 bike parking spaces (that sounds positive), over 2.5ha of public space and the fact that it will be sustainable.

I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of architectural information available compared with the excellent detail provided by Kylun's Vauxhall Island Site PR team where it's clear from the plan exactly how the buildings will be laid out. To be fair, I didn't go to the consultation, so feel free to leave comments if you did attend and have more information about what size the flats are likely to be, how they'll be laid out, how Royal Mail operations with co-exist on the site, and how much affordable housing will be provided.

Monday, 15 November 2010

I've just spotted that a planning application 10/03858/RG4 has been submitted for the installation of 17 docking points on Cleaver Street opposite Broadgates Court (a post-war block of flats). This was one of the sites that several locals suggested and the land is owned by the council. The Council are also considering performing some beautification on the surrounds too, so presuming that residents don't think it a terrible idea, we ought to gain a few more docks in the centre of Kennington soon, hopefully relieving congestion on the Post Office and Sancroft Square docks somewhat.

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Following October's attempt to tweak the 20 Albert Embankment planning consent and today's request to extend the time limit on the already-granted planning permission, it doesn't look as though we'll be graced by the presence of three new towers (including another hotel) on the Albert Embankment any time soon. The current permission is set to expire in March 2011.

Monday, 8 November 2010

Every so often a member of the public sends off an email to Lambeth Council, regarding consultation, in the vague hope that there'll be somebody that might read it and take the comments on board. Last week, however, I watched as two comprehensive responses from Dawn Rahman (nee Haines) on the placement of Boris Bike docks bounced into my inbox. Dawn had responded, in detail, to my (and others) suggestions for London Cycle hire bike docking points in Lambeth. I'm delighted by the responses to the suggestions (some of which were provided to me in Twitter via readers) as it enables me to give you an update.

One issue with suggesting docks was that we were told that they had to be within the "existing area boundary", but I was unclear exactly where that boundary lay, so I suggested some for Oval. I want to see these docks go to Peckham, Camberwell, Stockwell, Brixton and down as far as Clapham (at least), but I didn't submit sites for these area as it would have been rather counterproductive. Those places do not lie within the existing area. So, our suggestions...

1. Kennings Way (a small road opposite Kennington tube station) which was suggested due to an absence of docking stations on Kennington Park Road between Kennington Post Office dock and the Hampton Street dock.

Lambeth Council's response: "Lambeth have had a look at this site as we're aware that there is a big gap in the network. Taking away car parking is always difficult but not impossible. However, I think I have found an easier location to progress opposite the shops on Kennington Park Road - just a short distance from Kennington tube. This could potentially be located on the very wide footway and allow us to remove some of the unsightly bollards that we have had to put up to prevent cars parking on it."

My response: Thumbs up. That placement would be great, without having to remove parking, and might benefit the shops too.

2. Cleaver Street (opposite Lambeth county court) - I noted that some residents may object about this suggestion as that piece of land and its use has previously come under disupute (I can't remember why). It's also quite close to the Sancroft Street (St Anselm's) dock, but since that one's often full/empty, another one within close proximity wouldn't do any harm.

Lambeth Council's response: "This is one that we started progressing back in July [2010], and it is due to be put forward for planning approval next week. The land is owned by our housing department and they are fully on board. It also means we can tidy up this area and put in some additional cycle parking and benches which hopefully will help improve the feel of the place."

My response: Excellent news. That ought to relieve the congestion in the central docks and if it can be used as an opportunity to beautify the area, that's even better.

3. Cleaver Square (south side, near to the City and Guilds of London Art School) - I noted that I didn't know whether there would be room, but somebody suggested it to me, so I sent it on.

Lambeth Council's response: "Lambeth have looked at this and the pavement in front is a bit to narrow... In view of the above two suggestions we think that if we can go ahead with these, this will help with network coverage in that area - as both of the above are in close proximity to this site. There is also some highway land to the side of the Art school however this would require taking away motorcycle bays which we don’t tend to have too many of so again this would probably receive quite a few objections."

My response: That's reasonable. I'd object to removal of scooter/motorcycle parking for cycle docks because I agree that there isn't enough of it. If both other docks are implemented (particularly the one near the tube), there would be less need for one here.

4. Extension of the docking station at Kennington Park Post office - (I noted that the dock is always full or empty, being that it represents the souternmost boundary of the scheme).

Lambeth Council's response: "Unfortunately TfL have said that due to the cost involved, they can only extend existing docking stations if we can put in at least 15 more bikes. I've had a look at this site and I just can't see how we can accommodate that many bikes in that space. Hopefully though if we can progress some of the other sites this will help with capacity issues."

My response: That's annoying. However, Lambeth Council are clearly restricted by TFL on this point so there's not much that could be suggested. Does anybody think that there's room on the same side of Kennington Road slightly further up, near to the bus stop for a dock??

5. Island site opposite Oval station between Brixton Road, Clapham Road and the top of Camberwell New Road - (The island contains only a piece of circular seating furniture at present, and the site is sometimes used by Lambeth Council for bike repair workshops. I never really understood why this wasn't an obvious site in the first place).

Lambeth Council's response: "We did get planning permission for a site on this piece of land. Unfortunately we lost it at the construction stage due to problems when they dug the ground up. However, we are now looking at progressing a site outside of the Oval cricket ground ticket office which takes up existing car parking bays. This is being looked at currently with TfL. Again hopefully this will help with the gaps in the network."

My response: That's an excellent clarification, but a real shame. I wonder what problems were found when the ground was dug up? I guess a site outside of the Oval circket ground is an acceptable substitution, but I think the island site would be better. There's more room and it wouldn't take parking spaces.

6. Albert Embankment -(nearer to Lambeth Bridge) - Permission has been requested for a dock opposite 4 Albert Embankment at present, so this might come to fruition anyway (hopefully)...

Lambeth Council's response: "TfL have progressed one in close proximity to Lambeth Bridge and that hopefully we will get a response from planning as to whether it has been approved on the 22nd November. I think there are plans for a site on Guys and St Thomas' land a bit further up..." (Edited due to correction sent from Dawn on 16th Nov 2010)

My response: Great. Let's hope that the site on 4 Albert Embankment is approved.

7. Kennington Park

Lambeth Council's response: "See comments above"

My response: I'm not sure that the comments above would apply to a site at the back of Kennington Park, say nearer to St Agnes Place, but maybe that's outside of the existing area.

Incidentally, Mrs Rahman noted in an email to Cllr Morgan that all sites have to go through planning and transport regulations which means that if you live near to a dock for which planning permission is sought, you'll get the opportunity to provide comments in support or against.

I'm interested in reader feedback on this as many of my readers fed in suggestions for sites, and if you'd like me to go back to Lambeth with further suggestions, I think there's still time! I didn't suggest any near Vauxhall Station as I imagine that that will be addressed separately, but I'm sure you can all think of more that you'd like.

Ever since I attended the Angry Parent meeting at St Anselm's church a few months ago, and compiled the list of schools and their recent Ofsted reports, I've been getting a lot more hits from people searching for local primary schools. It made me wonder whether the subject matter of my area coverage was unbalanced. I write a considerable amount on planning, but very little on the arts (community meetings seem to squeeze out theatre trips, but I've tried to address arts via the new calendar), and a lot on community groups, but very little on education... I thought it might be worth redressing the balance every so often...

One particularly impressive part of the Angry Parents meeting was the fact that two members of staff from Henry Fawcett Primary School showed up and spoke about the measures that they'd put in place to bring their school out of Special Measures. I thought it was a particularly brave move, at a meeting set up for parents who were concerned about their being enough places at "good" local schools to meet the needs of their children. Consequently, it seems timely to note a document on the Henry Fawcett home page that demonstrates the steps they took to bring the school out of those measures in a very short time. From that document, we learn that there's been a complete restructuring of staff, a new curriculum, the implementation of a database to monitor students' progress, report cards for misbehaving children, new sports coaches at lunch time, improved lesson planning etc. etc. Wow. Fantastic work!

Also, I wondered whether it was possible for parents and neighbours to learn what was happening at their children's schools locally. St Mark's C of E school do have a rather slow website, but that doesn't look as though it has been updated since 2005! Crampton Primary School have a website whose "recent" newsletter hasn't been updated since 2006. [Edit 11/2/2011: Vauxhall Primary School have a new website.] Walnut Tree Walk have a promising website with little content. Charlotte Sharman share the same website host as St Mark's which is slow to load and hasn't been updated since 2007/8. St Anne's Roman Catholic Primary appear to have no website. Lilian Baylis Technology School have a site, but it's down (I'll check again in the morning). Henry Fawcett have a bright website, which is only a few months out of date, and last updated approx. July 2010. Archbishop Tenisons School have a website updated this month and Archbishop Sumner Primary School have a website that was last updated in October. I wanted to make this post one about the positive news of local schools, but it will seem too biased if I do so without including a full range of schools.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Archbishop Sumner also have outstanding Ofsted results. It's not true to say that the website makes the school, but it might be true to say that if you have within the school the resources (be that staff, parents or friends) to create and update a website, then you have the voluntary capacity required to run an outstanding school. The problem is (and this is my uninformed guess), that many (not all, but many) parents with money and resources wish to send their children to Archbishop Sumner. I'm not making this up, because this fact became clear at the meeting earlier on this year. The parents at that meeting (95% middle class, professional, and, incidentally, white) wished to see that school expanded. However, unless parents choose to run their own free schools (can't see Lambeth Council being excited by that idea), the likelihood of the school structure changing in its entirety is low. The difficulty is trying to figure out how to share and spread levels of high attainment.

School staff (at least, according to the news) have to work longer hours, teach children with English as a second language in schools where multiple languages are spoken, provide discipline where parents fail, subject children to continual SATs testing, satisfy the demands of the National Curriculum and stay sane. Maybe it's not their job to create and maintain websites. There's a possibility that website are unnecessary when parents speak to teachers at the school gates, and newsletters always make it home in children's bags. Should schools be producing websites and keeping the wider public informed of local education? I don't know. Is this the task of the Local Education Authority? Maybe, but how will they know exactly what's happening in a school? Is it their task, in an era of "shrink the state" governance? It seems to me that maybe it's the task of school governors, but they have to ensure children are safeguarded, enable a school to support children with Special Educational Needs, decide on policies of exclusion and manage the staff in a school, all in an unpaid capacity. It doesn't leave much time for managing a website. It seems that perhaps it's the task of the parents, but when one IT-savvy parent's child leaves a school, the website could be abandoned.

School websites are a small and insignificant matter that simply demonstrate commitment. Updating people with news is one of the ways that schools can appeal to the wider community and share their joys and concerns. Sharing news and enabling local "ownership" of services is part of creating the Big Society, right? The absence of up to date news from schools feeds into fears that I have concerning our impending Big Society. The volunteer culture needed to update school websites is precisely the volunteer culture required to visit the elderly when the State is forced out through spending cuts. Some people will argue that it should never have been the State's job in the first place. I'm agnostic on that matter. But even if it isn't the State's job, a sudden removal of front line carers and visitors is not going to create a situation where volunteers are immediately able to fill the breach. If that were the case, all of our schools would have up-to-date websites.

Sunday, 7 November 2010

Finally, just for the record, I wanted to add the final in the series of VNEB exhibition boards. There is so much going on locally that it's difficult to keep up! These boards mostly show Wandsworth Council's outlines on the VNEB, which is importance since the majority of the VNEB falls on their patch. In my view, the boards aren't quite as useful as the ones that Lambeth Council supplied on account of the fact that they don't summarise all of the buildings that have been granted planning permission to date. Maybe there are too many to list (or they've not yet been declared), but without an idea of that, it's difficult to imagine the volume of housing and commercial space that will hit the area:

This board clearly outlines the scale of the development. 16,000 new homes means the arrival of a vast number of new residents. I fail to see how 20,000 - 25,000 new jobs will be created when industrial space is being reduced, but perhaps we'll all be surprised:

Note the mention of the "linear park", linking Vauxhall to Battersea. This will not provide adequate green space given the likely population density, even once the parks at Spring Gardens and Vauxhall have been taking into account:

The additional 800 primary school aged children will be catered for by /one/ primary school. Goodness knows whether the other primary schools in the locality can be expanded to meet demand. The 600 secondary school aged pupils will presumably have to be placed in existing schools. I'm not sure whether a school feasibility study has been completed, but this /sounds/ a tad unrealistic even to my unknowledgable ears. Battersea gets a library. Vauxhall probably won't (but then, libraries aren't really in vogue at the moment, are they?):

Transport. One of my favourite topics! This poster indicates improved bus services, new bus routes and increased bus frequency. It also shows enhanced railway stations (but doesn't mention enhanced services) so this probably just means the stations will get a make over (see here for Vauxhall rail station refurbishment). Cyclists are mentioned here in terms of "better provision", but it doesn't clearly outline cycle lanes or segregated cycle paths on roads or anything like that. There's mention of the proposed Northern line tube to Battersea, with an added station at Nine Elms (my favourite option, but it probably wouldn't do much to relieve congestion Kennington tube station). However, I think the huge cost of this project will eventually mean that the area will get a tram (which is one of the proposed options in the giant VNEB consultation document). I suppose another option might be to add a new National Rail station between Queenstown and Vauxhall, but looking at the map, this would probably be too far from the power station to meet the new residents' needs:

Here's a model, which I think illustrates how nasty and oversized the new St George tower will look. The architecture is not even particularly imaginative, just a round tall tower. This model is not illustrative of all of the buildings planned for Vauxhall. For some reason, some of these have been missed off. The orange line on the plan is the new proposed tube route:

Just for the record, here are the last few signs up at the exhibition, and completes this rather long and tedious set of plans and photos in the VNEB series.

Part 1 (Ballymore section) of VNEB exhibition is here.
Part 2 (Lambeth Council section) of VNEB exhibition is here.
Part 3 (Tideway Wharf section) of VNEB exhibition is here.
Part 4 (Sainsbury's Towers section) of VNEB exhibition is here.

Saturday, 6 November 2010

At the KOV meeting on Monday, after we'd heard about the refurbishment of Vauxhall railway station, Brian Dickens of Sports Action Zone (SAZ) took the platform to speak about plans for the former Lilian Baylis School on Lollard Street. A short paper was circulated (apologies for picture quality):

New readers might benefit from a little recent history. In February 2009, Lambeth Council put together a hub group (All Nations Church, Sports Action Zone and Ethelred Nursery) to create a future at the former Lilian Baylis. On 14th December 2009, Lambeth Concil issued a statement to decommision the hub group. I wrote a lengthy post showing one way that the December 2009 statement might be interpreted. Nothing more has been said on the matter, and when I sent Steve Reed a Tweet in October 2009, all he would say is "Still negotiating a consortium to run the old school site, details public soon, intending it shd represent the whole community not just part." Go and read the 2009 update on the former Lilian Baylis for the more recent history. If you want to go even further back (because Lurking about SE11 takes history seriously), you can read my definitive potted summary from 2005 - 2009.

Considering all of that, I hoped that the next part of the process would be the announcement of a new consortium to manage the site (as per Steve Reed's Tweet). I expected that a varied combination of organisations would speak about their plans for the site. Despite heartily commending their proposals, it was slightly disappointing to receive a presentation from Sports Action Zone alone. Mr Dickens noted that since 2005, SAZ's aim has been to "develop the community through sport". He also commented, "it's not only sport, it is a community hub, it is intergenerational. It's about health, it's about arts, it's about music media. It is about cycling and helping young people put bikes together. It is about a whole range of opportunities for the local community." Accordingly, 90% of the onsite provision is free and there are 90,000 attendances every year. There are case studies now from young people who've changed their lives as a result of being involved in projects on site:

Working with the South Bank Employer's Group, SAZ successfully obtained £75,000 from the Government's Community Builds Program. With that, they've examined a sustainable approach to developing a portion of the former Lilian Baylis site. "Part of the problem," Brian Dickens acknowledged, is that "there has never been an understanding of what the site is going to become". Well, precisely. The site is listed in its entirety, making developent very tricky. Despite this, SAZ have identified an area of the site (I think it's the section showing the sports courts on the board below) which looks as though it could be developed. Through the Community Builds Program, £2 million of funds can be accessed to refurbish the site and SAZ are speaking to several investors about bringing in additional money for the project:

Some of the investment on site has already been made. Barclays have provided brand new tennis court and a fourth generation national turf pitch was donated by Nike. SAZ want to put an athletics track at the back of the site, expand the area available for sports on site and replace the existing sports hall through bringing in external funding. SAZ also hope to work alongside Lambeth Council with the appointed architects to review the Statement of Significance to consider how the listed buildings on the site might be used. SAZ would like the site to be a community hub with a remit that is wider than sport. This will require further consultation with the community. However, proposal need to be submitted to the Community Builds Program very swiftly. SAZ are thus hoping that their the plans will go before Lambeth Council Cabinet on the 22 November to give them the opportunity to secure the long term future of the site under the auspices of a Trust which would comprise members of SAZ, Lambeth Council and the local community.

It's an impressive overview, and quite clever, considering that the largest portion of the investment needs to be put into the listed buildings which SAZ will not seek funding to rebuild. If SAZ can pull this off, the question will be how the rest of the funding might be secured to put the rest of the former Lilian Baylis into good use.

Brian Dickens took a number of questions from members of the audience. One audience member asked about whether the trust would be formed for Area A (the section of the site that KOV hope to develop) or for the entire site. Mr Dickens said that he thought that, in the first instance, the trust would be responsible only for Area A, but that would not stop the trust evolving to take in the rest of the site. The difficulty is that substantial investment is required to develop the rest of the site. In response to a later question however about getting a trust off the ground, Mr Dickens thought it might comprise only SAZ and Lambeth Council members. I'd have thought that this might compromise its claim to independence, but never mind!

A representative from the Kennington Association asked whether Ecuadorian Volleyball could be retained on site. Mr Dickens affirmed that they're an important of the project and noted that SAZ were not looking to exclude anybody so, whether playing outdoors or indoors, Ecuadorian volleyball would always be a part of the project. Somebody asked about the link up between Alford House and SAZ (especially important, considering the squeeze that will likely be placed on the funding of youth projects). A brief response was received; "we're still working very closely with them, and we'd continue to work with them about how to involve them in anything that's going forward". Another audience member wanted to know whether sponsorship from Barclays would be developed. Further discussions will apparently take place about how they might be involved with other parts of the site. SAZ hope to look at developing apprenticeships to widen the project so that it's not solely about sport.

Many questions were forthcoming about the possibility of a swimming pool on site. Brian Dickens commented that swimming pools were very expensive to install and run, and was much more committed to the temporary swimming pool concept that resulted in this year's 12 metre pool. It seems a number of people support these temporary pools. Muslim women are able to use them since other facilities are unsuitable, and they are also useful for teaching children how to swim. 72% of children from Vauxhall School learned to swim in the 6 week period of the temporary pool's existence. I'm afraid that I don't see any permanent swimming pool funding being forthcoming (from Barclays or otherwise) and would rather continue to try to support proposals for a new adequately sized swimming pool at Elephant and Castle. In any case, Lambeth Council would argue that their new Coin St swimming pool in Waterloo should serve North Lambeth's requirements.

One of the final comments was, for me, the most telling. "I went to look at the pool, but I found the site barren and empty, and I didn't know if it was a training pool or whether anybody could use it...". Since SAZ continually stress their desire to look "beyond sport" and be a true "community hub" they could improve their service to the local community by providing information about what's available at present. Perhaps a weekly schedule of classes/training sessions on site, an idea of who is entitled to attend, a cost structure and opening times might be forthcoming. I'm afraid that, despite visiting the SAZ website, I'm still somewhat in the dark about whether SAZ is just for young people or whether it provides sporting facilities for the entire SE11 community. I'm broadly support the proposal, but I feel that the notion of an independent trust still needs to be fleshed out, and SAZ must demonstrate how it can offer services that will benefit the entirety of North Lambeth.

Friday, 5 November 2010

I've renamed the Sainsbury's Nine Elms redevelopment as "Sainsbury's Towers" on account of the fact that the only thing we know about it is that it's likely to comprise 3 towers. Happily, we should receive more info on the plans as Sainsbury's will be consulting with the community on:

If you don't feel that you can bear to spend another portion of your week at a planning exhibition, you'll note that a Sainsbury's Nine Elms website will go live from the 19th November.

For the record, I think that the Nine Elm's Parkside (Royal Mail) proposal and this, the Sainsbury's Tower proposal plans should have been available at the large VNEB exhibition last month. Conducting all of these separate consultations means that local residents, anybody trying to get an overview of how the area will look and other interested parties only ever receive a fragment of the picture, and it results in plenty of us spending our weekends trapising around viewing photoboards. Grump over. If you don't go, the info. should be on display here.

Thursday, 4 November 2010

The F Word Exhibition (also known as the Forgiveness Project) tours prisons, churches and other venues in both the US and the UK, to highlight stories of courage from people who have been able to forgive others after they've been wronged. The narratives are varied, containing the extraordinary testimonies of people who are learning to forgive after living through the Holocaust at Auschwitz or people offering forgiveness to those that killed their relatives in terrorist atrocities. But the project contains stories of ordinary people too; those that learn to forgive everyday ordinary wrongdoing.

I'm keen to promote this project because being unable to forgive others can destroy individuals and communities, and yet, without examples of others who've managed against the odds, it's much harder to imagine what forgiveness might look like. In Lambeth, there is perhaps a greater imperative to learn to forgive. Back in 2008, I quoted an excerpt from the South London Press in which Ashley Kemete's mother said that she had forgiven her son's killer(s) in a shooting that occurred in White Hart Street, Kennington. That's one extraordinary statement from a local woman, especially since it doesn't look as though Ashley's killer(s) have been arrested or sentenced, but I hope it isn't forgotten

The exhibition is being held at St Anselm's Church (Kennington Cross, SE11 5DU) from 29th November to 6th December. The comment below indicates that it will be open from 10am - 8pm at night.

As you'll know, I've still got one more post to make containing displays from the last VNEB exhibition. The ink has barely dried, but I've received notice of yet another Nine Elms planning consultation, this time for a development named Nine Elms Parkside. Once again, it's over the border in SW8, but I've not seen anybody systematically collecting details for these different Nine Elms proposals so just consider us to be temporarily Lurking around the borders of SE11 too.

This exhbition ought to prove contentious. About a month ago, I received an email from RCDT/LMHS, suggesting that Royal Mail might sell their Nine Elms sorting office site. This particular site is home to 1150 workers. Londonist also noted that an East London sorting station is under threat too. Greg Charles, the Branch Secretary for the London South West Postal Branch of the Communication Workers Union commented;

"Closing Mail Centres in London will lead to a poorer service and will hit Business and homes alike at a time when it can ill afford it. We will fight these ridiculous plans of closure to ensure not only jobs are protected for our members but business & people across London are protected with essential services they require."

The Wandsworth Guardian quote Mr Charles accusing Royal Mail of attempting to make "a fast buck" through selling the site. Obviously, a sale would make sound commercial sense, but Mr Charles is concerned that service and jobs will be affected by the closure and relocation of the sorting office. Before everybody jumps in with the likely comments that the internet has resulted in a decline of post etc and that sorting office closures are inevitable, do read the complaints of SE1 residents, who are served by alternative sorting stations. (Comments are here, here and here). Also, remember that the VNEB opportunity area will contain the same number of residents as Welwyn Garden City, and imagine how this would stretch the Royal Mail capabilities in the local area.

If the Royal Mail sorting office will be sold as a result of the Nine Elms area being a new Opportunity Zone, one is obligated to keep asking "for whom is this an opportunity?". I do not deny that the area requires regeneration (indeed, I favour a sensible re-development of VNEB), or that Royal Mail might need to make job cuts in the current climate, but talks between Royal Mail and the Unions are still ongoing. Consequently, it seems rather churlish to consult over a new development on the Sorting Office site prior to the end of those talks...

Nonetheless, news of a consultation re. Nine Elms Parkside appeared in my inbox yesterday and they have a lovely shiny new Nine Elms Parkside website, proudly sporting the Royal Mail logo. Without needing to look too carefully, you'll see that the development area shown on the photo in the literature below /is/ the Sorting Office (look at all of the red Royal Mail vehicles at the top left of the photo). Of course, the unions may be prematurely concerned. Perhaps the site will be redeveloped to allow for a Royal Mail facility on the land, alongside new residential property. Who knows?